Friday, February 27, 2015

Net Neutrality

The FCC Passed Net Neutrality yesterday and I've been reading some dissents that bear no relationship to the actual truth. If you want it explained to you, John Oliver did the best job of it, back when the FCC was thinking of buckling to cable company demands...



And this is Tom Taylor's take on the decision, via his NOW Newsletter...

“Unfettered access to any lawful content.” That’s FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, who also says “This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech.” Wheeler and the two Republican Commissioners were cordial at yesterday’s snow-delayed meeting – but they couldn’t be further apart, philosophically. Ajit Pai says the 3-2 “open Internet” vote has “awakened a sleeping giant.” He says whether it’s struck down by a federal court or a future (Republican-controlled) FCC, “I do believe its days are numbered.” Michael O’Rielly huffed about the agency’s “attempts to usurp the authority of Congress.” But in the post-meeting Q&A with reporters, Wheeler predicts that “It will be hard for [opponents] to get a stay” of the rule in court. Wheeler says he’s got just three bright-line tests – “no blocking, no throttling, no prioritized fast lane.” He says the big guys like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and TimeWarner Cable “have all said we didn’t intend to” do any of that stuff, anyhow. Another way to say what the FCC says it’s doing – big ISPs “may not impair or degrade service, or may not favor some Internet traffic over other Internet traffic in exchange for consideration.” Among the witnesses introduced by Chairman Wheeler was Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson, who says 88% of the mostly home-based craft-workers who sell with his Brooklyn-based site are women who shouldn’t have to pay extra to gain faster access. Another supporting witness, via video from Europe, was no less than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web. To Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, “we cannot have a two-tiered Internet with fast lanes that speed the traffic of the privileged, and leave the rest of us lagging behind.”

That last quote sums it up perfectly. Everything else you hear is noise. Don't be fooled into agreeing with the people who clearly don't have your best interests at heart. There's no agenda behind this decision, but there's a big time (and big money) agenda behind it's opposition.